A 1963 protest song asking how many roads a man must walk down, taken to number two in America by a folk trio (1963)
'Blowin' in the Wind', from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan; the hit version was by Peter, Paul and Mary.
Popular music · Rock
Bob Dylan
born 24 May 1941 · American
Folk revival, then folk rock; singer-songwriter
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan arrived in Greenwich Village in 1961 as a Woody Guthrie disciple and within four years had turned popular song into literature. His move from acoustic protest to electric rock in 1965–66 split his audience and reshaped the form; the three albums of that period are among the most influential records ever made. In 2016 he became the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
How to spot them
- ▸Born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, raised in Hibbing, Minnesota; the name is usually said to nod to Dylan Thomas
- ▸Harmonica in a neck rack, an acoustic guitar, and the Newport Folk Festival of 1965 where he plugged in
- ▸Nobel Prize in Literature 2016, 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'
- ▸The Band (formerly the Hawks) as his backing group; the Basement Tapes; the Rolling Thunder Revue; the Never Ending Tour
- ▸Other people's hits with his songs: Peter, Paul and Mary, the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Guns N' Roses
Songs & albums
A 1965 single over six minutes long, opening with a snare crack and asking how it feels to be a complete unknown (1965)
'Like a Rolling Stone' — it reached number two in America despite its length, and often tops greatest-song polls.
A 1966 double album, the first in rock, recorded largely with Nashville session players (1966)
Blonde on Blonde, containing 'Visions of Johanna', 'Just Like a Woman' and 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands'.
A 1967 album of spare, biblical country songs, recorded after a motorcycle crash took its author out of public life (1967)
John Wesley Harding — it includes a song about a joker and a thief that Jimi Hendrix turned into a hit the following year.
A 1975 album of marital wreckage, largely re-recorded in Minneapolis days before release (1975)
Blood on the Tracks — 'Tangled Up in Blue', 'Idiot Wind', 'Shelter from the Storm'.
A 1975 protest song about a boxer wrongly convicted of murder, which helped win him a retrial (1975)
'Hurricane', about Rubin Carter, from Desire.
A 1963 song warning senators and congressmen that the order is rapidly fading (1964)
'The Times They Are a-Changin''.
A seventeen-minute single of 2020 about the Kennedy assassination, his first ever to top a US Billboard chart (2020)
'Murder Most Foul', from Rough and Rowdy Ways; it topped Billboard's Rock Digital Song Sales chart.
Quick-fire facts
- •Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, the first songwriter to receive it; he did not attend the ceremony and sent a lecture later
- •Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 by Bruce Springsteen
- •He was booed at the Newport Folk Festival on 25 July 1965 for playing electric with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
- •A motorcycle crash near Woodstock in July 1966 ended eight years of touring; he did not tour again properly until 1974
- •He won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2001 for 'Things Have Changed' from Wonder Boys
- •He was a member of the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty
- •In 2020 he sold his entire songwriting catalogue to Universal Music Publishing, reportedly for over $300 million
- •His memoir Chronicles: Volume One appeared in 2004; the 2024 film A Complete Unknown starred Timothée Chalamet as him
- •The Basement Tapes were recorded in 1967 with the Hawks, later the Band, in a house near Woodstock nicknamed Big Pink
- •Now 85, he continued touring through 2026 with US and European legs of the Never Ending Tour
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Sources
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Bob Dylan — Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee page
- Bob Dylan — Chronicles: Volume One